AFRICA: What can a book say about Boko Haram or the porous border between today's Cameroon and today's Chad? Or about the pre-colonial kingdom of Kanem-Bornu?
MODERNIZATION: The Nigerian professor Olùfèmi Táíwò looks at power relations between the formerly colonized and colonialists. All states strive to adapt modern institutions to their own history, cultural context and ideological climate. But can the demand to decolonize the language become absurd?
Intellectuals: Inspired both by Bakhtin and Foucault, Stephen Chan presents Achille Mbembe's analyzes of the African state in an understandable way. But let's mention what the book leaves out.
FRANCE: The French presidential candidate Eric Zemmour's conclusion after a number of "not a day without" statements is that France is about to be taken over by Muslims and feminists. The whole Zemmour figure is incomprehensible.
THEY HAD: No one in the Norwegian government can have read Nathaniel Powell's new book France's War in Chad: Military Intervention and Decolonization in Africa. Had they done so, they would never have sent Norwegian soldiers to the French military force Takuba in Mali.
COMMUNITY BREACH: It is expensive to get married in Niger even though the bride price varies, and in the event of divorce, women are obliged to pay back the bride price.
SAHEL IN ENGLISH: France has strangely managed to preserve the hegemony over its former colonies, including in the dissemination of knowledge. This book is a much needed exception, which provides the background for understanding the recent coup in Mali.